Not a month has passed since the Oregon
Liquor Control Commission (OLCC) enacted much-needed changes to their
rules governing all-ages concerts, and we’re already beginning to see
some venue-accessibility progress. As a cosmic graduation gift
to young Oregonians, June has seen Holocene host its first ever
minor-friendly show, and the Doug Fir win approval from the OLCC
to put on all-ages, alcohol-free, matinee concerts (meaning over by
7:30 pm) to supplement their current event programming. Doug Fir booker
Alicia Rose says that these matinees—a significant, if
incremental, boon for young music fans—will be arranged for local
and national acts with established youth draw and will likely begin in
September. Sounds to me like the September 18 CD release party for the
debut album by recent Badman Recording Co. signees Starfucker, beloved
by pubescent and post-pubescent hipsters alike, would be just the
(all-ages) ticket. Make it so!
Starfucker isn’t the only Portland band to have put soy ink to
post-consumer label contract this year. Like a shark turned maneater
after its first taste of human blood, revered label Kill Rock Stars
(KRS) has been ravenously gobbling up Portland bands since moving
to town. Their latest morsel: summer-lovin’, reed-in-the-water-voiced
janglemeisters the Shaky Hands. KRS and Holocene Music (who put out the
band’s debut album last year) will be jointly releasing
Lunglight, the Shaky Hands’ second LP, on September
9.
Coincidentally, that very same day, Parenthetical
Girls—Portland’s purveyors of the disturbingly suggestive,
reverb-and-percussion-rich anti-lullaby—will birth their new
album Entanglements, thanks to the midwifery of
European imprint Tomlab, respected for its work with the likes of other
post-post-rock outfits like the Books, Final Fantasy, and fellow
P-towners the Blow. As to why the ensemble is, for the first time,
releasing an album on a label other than founding member (and former
Mercury music editor) Zac Pennington’s own Slender Means
Society, Pennington pragmatically explains: “Creating abstract and
creative business models to sell my own records for very marginal
return is more energy than I care to expend away from actually making
new music.”
Yet, as we know, not every band in 2008 thinks a label is the place
to be, particularly if they have a large established fanbase, and such
appears to be the case with indie-pop titans the Shins.
Billboard reported this week that the Portland-based
band—who have sold more than a million-and-a-half albums on
Sub Pop since 2001—will likely be leaving the label to release the follow-up to last year’s Wincing the Night Away on frontman James Mercer’s own, apparently new, Aural Apothecary
imprint. The band’s manager elaborated that the Shins would, however,
likely team with other forces, possibly Sub Pop, for distribution and
promotion.
But even as we ponder the creative and commercial futures of
hometown bands still on the march, let us take a moment to recognize
the contributions made by two local acts, distinguished in their own
ways, who have recently disbanded: noise-pop duo We Quit, and
Elephant Six-affiliated melody masters the Minders. You shall be
missed.
Lastly, in the event that you were planning on attending the
3900′ Festival, scheduled for June 27 and 28 at Horning’s
Hideout, please note that it has been cancelled.